


A Study in Contrasts

by QuoteMyFoot



Category: Fire Emblem Series, Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: Alternate Universe - Sherlock Holmes Fusion, Alternate Universe - Victorian, Domestic Fluff, Established Relationship, Fluff, In-Universe Novel, M/M, Murder Mystery, Mystery, Romance, Writing Meta, please use the author work skin or this will make NO sense
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-28
Updated: 2020-04-10
Packaged: 2021-02-28 20:41:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 17,649
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23363377
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/QuoteMyFoot/pseuds/QuoteMyFoot
Summary: When Ferdinand first met the great consulting detective Hubert von Vestra, they did not get along. Now in a happy relationship with Hubert, Ferdinand comes to better appreciate what they have through writing the story of their first case together: the murder of one Doctor Varley.(Sherlock Holmes AU - with Ferdinand as Hubert's Watson.)
Relationships: Ferdinand von Aegir/Hubert von Vestra
Comments: 45
Kudos: 120
Collections: Fanworks Club Monthly Prompts





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This fic is not very screen reader friendly. If you use text-to-speech software, please comment below and I will work out some way to send you a version better suited for your needs.
> 
> Otherwise, please do use the suggested work skin, or this fic will be a very difficult read for you lol.

This is where I met the most extraordinary man I was ever to set my eyes on—and dare I say it, one who has improved my life a hundredfold since that day. I cannot express enough gratitude for all the joys and successes he has allowed me to play a part in, and even occasions where he has saved my life are, to me, treasured memories…

Ferdinand didn’t let his pen pause as he sensed Hubert leaning over his shoulder—looming, more like, as the man used his height to peer down at the paper, an attempt, on his part, to be subtle. As if any amount of subtlety would conceal his looking at the page when Ferdinand was already aware of how desperately he wanted to read it.

“If your only comment is to point out an error in my grammar, I swear I will stab you with this pen.”

Hubert’s shadow danced across the paper as he jerked back. Ferdinand didn’t turn around to see, but he could sense Hubert’s scowl radiating from him in waves as he pointedly returned to his seat without comment.

Alas, I get ahead of myself. In this volume my concern is only with giving a truthful telling of our first meeting. The (rather embarrassed) author begs the reader’s understanding in advance. You must know that I had never encountered a man of such talents before, and in my scepticism, I may have been somewhat—uncouth with my words. You may rest assured that none have had more opportunity to rue the comments I made over those first few days more than myself.

Hubert shifted in his chair. Ferdinand glanced over to see him buried in one of his monographs. When he had had time to count to ten and the page hadn’t turned, he knew for sure that it was a ruse.

Ferdinand sighed and put down his pen, which drew Hubert from his pretence. He sat up in his chair like a startled deer.

“Are you _very_ sure you should not like to have some input?” Ferdinand asked. “You know I am always happy to hear your thoughts.”

Hubert’s pale cheeks became slightly pink, although whether it was from the compliment or from being caught in being so invested, Ferdinand couldn’t say. Clearing his throat, Hubert replied, “As I have said, I quite trust you to write a truthful account.”

“Ah,” Ferdinand said. “I suppose that is why you have been combing through my notes when you think I won’t notice. To admire their truthfulness.”

Hubert’s mouth dropped open and then closed again. After a moment, with a petulant frown, he said, “I was so sure I had put everything back in exactly the correct place.”

“Oh! You certainly did. I would not have had the slightest clue that you had gone through them were it not for…”

When the sentence remained unfinished, Hubert’s frown deepened. “Get it over with! A man must always hear of his errors if he hopes to improve.”

Ferdinand beamed. _You would not think so by how miserable you look at having been caught out._ “Were it not for… your insatiable curiosity.”

Hubert sat up straight in his chair. “What sort of answer is that?! You cannot merely guess at—at anything.”

“But it is not a guess! It is from my study of your character.” Ferdinand was still smiling even when Hubert snorted and muttered something uncomplimentary under his breath. He was so often in control of every situation that Ferdinand had to take his fun where he could. Besides which, he was quite convinced it was good for Hubert’s soul, to be flabbergasted every now and again. “You see, having known you these many years, I knew of your incessant need to know everything – and of course, I was quite aware that I had not forbidden you to look.” He tapped his head. “Ergo, it was impossible that you would _not_ look.”

Hubert’s scowl remained, but he was blushing. “Not only do you make me sound so very predictable, but you insist on delivering it as though it were a compliment! You constantly vex me.”

“And now you are going to tell me your concerns with the book,” Ferdinand said, “because I have no doubt there are many.”

Again, Hubert shifted in his chair, running his fingers across his desk as though in hope of finding something to distract him. “I have no doubts about your ability to give a truthful—interesting—account,” he said, “but I wonder if—well, must you _really…_ begin there?”

“The beginning seems to me a natural place to start.”

“Oh, damn you!” Hubert declared, with sudden vigour. He sprang from his chair and pointed at Ferdinand accusingly. “You know exactly what I mean! I must confess, I did not—I was not as… polite to you as I ought to have been when we first met. If I’d known everything then that I know about you now, I—”

“My dear!” Ferdinand could not help but exclaim, rising from his chair and catching Hubert’s gesticulating hands in his own. “You are _embarrassed._ ”

“Of course I am embarrassed by my past conduct,” he muttered. He curled his long, cool fingers around Ferdinand’s hands, drawing them closer to his chest. “It was unconscionable of me to treat you in such a way.”

“And have I not turned your apologies away, again and again?” Ferdinand sighed, but he couldn’t help smiling. “With how I behaved towards you—towards your craft—I cannot deny that I deserved less from your wicked tongue—”

Hubert raised his eyebrows with a slow, soft smirk. “My wicked tongue, is it?”

Ferdinand realised what he had said and completely forgot the rest of what he had been going to say. “W-Well, I didn’t quite—I was trying to say—”

Hubert silenced his futile attempts at explaining himself with a kiss.

When they broke apart, Ferdinand found himself quite breathless. “I was trying to be serious, you know,” he murmured against Hubert’s lips.

“I don’t doubt it,” Hubert said. “But you blush so wonderfully, I could not resist teasing you.”

“Well, if teasing is _all_ you intend, perhaps I should get back to my—”

Hubert laughed, a sound that seemed to resonate through Ferdinand’s whole being, and pressed their lips together again.

The book was forgotten for quite some time.

* * *

When Ferdinand first picked up the pen, he found himself waging constant battles with his own mind. Was this word choice really the best one? Did this sentence not go on for too long? Were there too many details in this part?

~~After many centuries of greatness, my family had fallen~~ Due to my father’s mismanagement of the family estate, ~~as a young man I was forced to join~~ and other misfortunes which I shall not bore the reader by now recounting, I had come to Enbarr ~~as a wounded~~ ~~as a veteran~~ as a wounded soldier, recently discharged from service, with little to my credit except a good education that I had often not the sense to heed. ~~and a kind offer of employment from an old friend from my school days, seeking lodgings~~ A kind offer of employment from an old school friend meant I had a means of keeping myself ~~in the city~~ , and now only needed ~~a place to be kept~~ to find lodgings within the city, when a ~~coincidental~~ meeting ~~set me on the path~~ with a former teacher pointed me in the direction of a young man near to my own age, seeking a new lodger to keep a good position he had been lucky enough to land himself in.

I was soon to thank ~~my lucky~~ stars the fates that this young man was already engaged in a comfortable housing position, and that I myself was so desperate to find similar, for I do not think under any other circumstances that we should have extended our acquaintanceship beyond our very miserable first meeting—but I begin to get ahead of myself.

Ferdinand frowned over the last paragraph. He could not help but admire something in the turns of phrase, in the rhythm of the sentence—but did it interfere with the pacing of the tale? Was this out of order glimpse to confusing? Was it neither poorly paced nor confusing but merely a boring digression? _Good grief, the agony which the writer inflicts upon oneself in criticism exceeds anything else._

He made a note of that thought in case he should need it later and went back to wrestling with the editor that seemed to have taken up permanent residence inside his own head.

This internal critic was soon indignantly railing against Hubert’s corrections instead, as he crossed out entire paragraphs which Ferdinand had taken great pains over.

“Too self-deprecating,” was his only defence, as he handed the page back to Ferdinand.

Ferdinand quietly seethed. “I cannot have the readers thinking me arrogant.”

“You cannot have them doubting your retelling, either,” Hubert said. “And I will not allow you to give such an underwhelming account of your qualities to our audience.”

“ _Our_ audience?” he retorted, quite tartly.

Hubert, in the middle of lifting another page from the pile, froze for a moment before withdrawing his hand. “You said that a large part of the appeal would be an insight into the work of the ‘Great Detective’…”

The way he said _Great Detective,_ voice full of loathing, made Ferdinand’s anger quite shrivel away. He slumped in his chair. “I did say that. I’m sorry, I asked for your opinion, and—”

“No, it is I who ought to apologise,” Hubert said. “I have not been giving due consideration to your feelings—”

“You have only been telling the truth—”

“—and were you not the one who told me—”

“Yes, but that was—”

“—‘the truth is worthless if no one will listen’—” Hubert raised his voice to talk over him with an exasperated expression. “Damn it, you ridiculous man, let me apologise to you properly!”

Guilt still pricked at Ferdiand’s conscience, as much as he could not help but find a flustered Hubert so very endearing. “Shan't.”

Hubert buried his face in his hands and groaned. Ferdinand’s laughter prompted a dark glower from Hubert.

“You infuriate me on _purpose_ ,” he muttered.

“I reject this accusation! I merely take advantage of the moments as they come.”

Hubert snorted and draped an arm around Ferdinand’s shoulders, pressing his mouth to the top of his head. Ferdinand took this as a sign of success and quite willingly gave up his pen to entangle their fingers together.

“I do not mean to upset you,” Hubert murmured, “but it is… uncomfortable to see you write such things about yourself.”

Ferdinand wrinkled his nose. “You say sweet things, but my ego is not so fragile that I cannot admit that I was not so amenable a companion in the past.”

“‘Amenable companion’, indeed,” Hubert said dryly. “I notice that you did not take pains point out how _I_ had chased three lodgers away in nearly as many months with my terrible moods. You sell yourself short for being able to put up with me for any length of time.”

Ferdinand sighed. “Since you are so insistent, I will make sure to put in what an asset my bloody minded stubbornness was to securing my future happiness.”

To his delight, this startled a laugh out of Hubert. “Very well then. I will accept this compromise.”

My first impression of the man known as Hubert von Vestra would have been difficult to make worse: not only was he dressed entirely in black as though to emulate the pale-skinned vampires of lore, but he was curt and dismissive. Despite his own pressing need to find a companion and the pains Professor Hanneman had gone to in securing my interest and arranging this introduction, he barely raised his eyes from the work he was engrossed in to utter, “You will do.”

At other times the reader will hear me castigate the excessive pride with which I carried myself in those days; yet, on this occasion, I feel that my immediate and extreme offence was not unwarranted. “I beg your pardon?”

“If you are near deaf, all the better,” was the clipped reply. “I will be able to conduct my experiments without interruption.”

“To what sort of experiments do you refer?” I said, now quite angry. “I am not looking for lodgings where breakfast is served with poison.”

“You will be in no danger so long as you are not foolish enough to go around consuming strange substances.” He deigned to look up from his book in order to give me a withering glance which left me in no doubt that he was already sceptical that I possessed such sense. “You will not find a better position, so you ought to agree now before I seek a more amenable companion.”

“Amenable!” I exclaimed hotly. “I see that you are a hypocrite who holds other men to standards which you do not hold yourself.”

My pride was about to take a heavy blow, however, because I was indeed in desperate need of housing, and would be soon forced to agree to his terms. I staved off this dreadful agreement by pretending to withdraw and consider the notion.

Professor Hanneman was sympathetic to my plight, yet as a pragmatic man he urged me not to make unnecessary delay: we therefore arranged to meet at his rooms at the University of Enbarr the next day at three o’clock in the afternoon.

Despite his words and demeanour, Vestra must have been equally desperate for a flatmate, for he and I near crashed into one another outside Hanneman’s door at the appointed time. To my dismay, Professor Hanneman himself was absent, leading me to the frightful prospect of having to make polite conversation with Vestra himself.

I may have uttered a silent prayer to the Goddess to save me from this fate; an action which I later came to regret, for at the very moment that Vestra and I were to come to blows, the air was cut by a loud, distinct noise that rattled my nerves quite badly.

“That was a gunshot!” I said.

“Of course it was.” Vestra wasted no time in arguing with me; he was immediately off, following the noise. I was forced to dash after him.

I steeled myself for a dreadful sight when we finally located the origins of the gunshot, only to be confronted by a locked door and a number of rather confused scholars.

“What is going on?” Vestra demanded. “Why have you not entered the room? Someone might be injured!”

“It is locked from the other side!” one of them answered. “The door is far too heavy to break down.”

“Is Doctor Varlei in there? Has someone seen him?”

“The police have been called for! Please wait calmly!” another voice added.

I, alarmed, realised that Vestra had turned from sizing up the door to sizing up me. “You have been a soldier,” he said; quite apropos of nothing, for I had never mentioned this to him. “Might you be able to break in?”

“Certainly not!” I cried. “That door is solid oak and near as old and thick as the walls! You would need a battering ram to break it down.”

He turned to the door once again, resting his hand on his chin as he thought. “You are quite right, of course.” I barely heard his murmur over the chaos. “How curious…”

As though to make matters worse, when Detective Jacques showed up minutes later, the first thing the man said was, “There’s a fire! A fire just down the hall, in the library!”

Naturally, this new danger was met with consternation from the scholars; ignoring the detective’s suggestion to evacuate, they charged down the hallway to rescue their precious books.

“We had better go help,” I said to Vestra. The detective was already equipped with a one-person battering ram such as the police have available, and did not need us hovering at the door.

I half-expected Vestra to refuse, but the man merely sniffed the air and replied, “Yes, I must see the scene of this fire for myself.”

This was rather a strange thing to say, but I did not give it much thought at the time. Together, we joined the scholars in the library. The blaze was already roaring and the heat was as intense as a hot stove.

Vestra sniffed the air again, and I elbowed him for it. “Don’t inhale the smoke, you fool.”

“There isn’t very much smoke considering the size of the fire,” he said, quite indifferently.

I did not see the significance of his remark at the time; I was only concerned that my tentative lodgings situation might literally disappear in a puff of smoke. Leaving the idiot to his own musings, I took off my jacket and joined the scholars in attempting to put out the fire. It was severe but not yet so widespread, and with the help of some clever chemical applications, we were able to put it out without any significant loss of life – although, alas, I cannot say that the library was in such good shape.

“Wait,” I said, “but what of the detective?”

“Oh, we ought to see what he has been doing, I suppose,” Vestra said, in quite a bored voice. It did not have the same effect considering the smear of ash across his cheek, which was information that I quite spitefully kept to myself.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Written for the "Genre: Mystery" prompt on the Fanworks Club Discord server!


	2. Chapter 2

“Who was calling?”

“A young valet in need of some help. I gather he is rather new to his position and he has misplaced something very important of his master’s.”

“Are you not going to go?”

“I already sent him on his way—it was not difficult to see that the mud splatter on his boots was different than that on his trousers—good boots a man will wear at any time; but one would not wear such a coarse outfit whilst in service—I told him his girlfriend had like taken it, believing it to be a trifle which would not be missed, when in reality it has much sentimental value—and he ought to hurry before the item became impossible to track down.”

He said this all with great casualness, but his eyes were watching Ferdinand very carefully for his reaction.

Naturally, Ferdinand pretended to be upset. “You solved a case without me.”

“It was only a trifle.” Hubert was not taken in by his pout. “You would have been bored.”

“I’m never bored with you, my dear.”

“That is a terrible lie.”

“Well, I would not have been bored on this occasion, then,” Ferdinand said. “Even if you have broken up a fledging relationship! You have no sense of romance.”

Hubert snorted. “Yes, very romantic, I’m sure, to steal things from your beloved’s employer. I think the valet will thank me and take more care with whom he courts in the future.”

“I can recommend a consulting detective as a significant other. Alas, I believe there is only one in the whole of Enbarr, and I understand he is unavailable, even for dashing young valets.”

“You sentimental fool.” Hubert shook his head, but he lingered at Ferdinand’s chair. “The valet was quite plain, anyway. Certainly not enough to tempt me away.”

Ferdinand laughed. “I am glad to hear you have yet to tire of me.”

“You have a certain charm about you, I must say.” Hubert peered down at the pages on the table. “Ah, I see why you are so cheerful. We are just about to discover the body.”

“Do not make me sound so morbid!” Ferdinand protested. “I am merely pleased with my progress. Although I must admit, there is a certain fun in trying to capture your detective prowess on the page! Even if it does rather require some abuse of the poor semi-colon.”

“Grammatical fanatics will soon be beating down our door in outrage, I am sure,” he said dryly.

He occupied himself on the arm of Ferdinand’s chair, and Ferdinand resigned himself to writing with an audience. _Novelling is not usually intended as a spectator sport,_ he thought, but he could hardly begrudge Hubert an interest in the presentation of his character and methods.

The fire was barely reduced to cinders when there was a shout from down the corridor. “You all must come at once! I must take down your names for my investigation!”

“Investigation?” I wondered.

I was not the only one. “Did you get inside the room? You must tell us what has become of poor Doctor Varlei!”

“It’s _Varley_ ,” Hubert corrected. “V-A-R-L-E-Y.”

“What?” Ferdinand blinked, his mind sluggish as though arising from a very deep slumber. It took him a moment to realise what Hubert meant. “Oh—blast. Have I been spelling the man’s name wrong this whole time?”

“It has been a few years. I daresay he wouldn’t hold it against you.”

“Well, I suppose as long as it did not go to print, no harm was done,” he said.

He still felt a little disconcerted by the interruption, and was suddenly extremely conscious of Hubert’s watchful eyes. He held the pen over the paper, writing a word before hesitating and scratching it out.

Ferdinand did this three more times before Hubert rose from the chair. “I see that I am only distracting you. I will busy myself with something else.”

Before he could walk away, Ferdinand grabbed his hand. His fingers were still cold from standing at the door. “I did not mean to make you feel like you must go away.”

“I haven’t taken offence; I know you require peace when you focus.” All the same, he squeezed Ferdinand’s hand quite tightly, as though to assure himself it was really there. “But if you are willing, I would very much like to read it when you are finished.”

Ferdinand hesitated. In truth, he was still a little shy of showing it to Hubert – yes, he wished to have the thing published so that be might show his beloved’s talents to the world, but he did not really care about _their_ opinions. “I only hope that you will like it.”

“I’m sure it will be wonderful, Ferd, don’t be ridiculous.” Hubert shook his head and leaned in to place a kiss at the corner of Ferdinand’s mouth. “After all, who knows me better?”

“No one, I suppose,” Ferdinand said. He grinned. “You scared them all away.”

“Exactly.” Hubert’s expression was warm as he smiled softly. He squeezed Ferdinand’s hand one more time before letting go. “I will bring you some tea and then leave you to your work.”

“What a terrifying man you are, waiting on me hand and foot,” Ferdinand remarked. “I do not know how I have been able to stand your company for so long.”

“Sarcasm does not become you, Ferd.”

“You only say that because you so enjoy using it against me.”

“The two facts do not necessarily contradict one another…”

He was true to his word—soon there was a steaming pot of tea brewing at the corner of the table, all as Ferdinand liked it, and when he was able to get on in the quiet.

“I am afraid that Doctor Varley is dead, sir,” the detective said. “You were lucky that I was nearby, else important evidence might have been lost because of the fire.”

Amongst the wails of horror – one man may even have fainted – I noticed that Hubert von Vestra did not look perturbed at all. Indeed, there was a gleam of interest in his eye which, up until this point, I had yet to see. The look did not suit him well: with his appearance, it gave one the impression of a man who had constructed a cunning trap and was merely waiting to spring it.

I will credit myself with no little ability of comprehension, here, for although I could not know this at the time, Vestra had indeed just constructed such a plan.

“I must take everyone’s details so as—” The detective’s voice was soon drowned out by another show of hysteria, as those gathered began to insist that _they_ could not possibly be the killers. “Gentlemen, that is not what I mean to imply, however—”

To my shock, Vestra stepped forward quite suddenly, catching the detective’s interest. “If I may offer my assistance? I have been privileged enough to assist the police on a few matters before – you may have heard of Jeralt Eisner’s murder last year, which I helped to resolve—in my own small way.”

Vestra did not strike me as a man who would describe any of his actions as a mere ‘small way’ of helping, but the detective was interested by this account. “I did hear that there was a consulting detective who was of some assistance in catching the murderers,” he said, eyeing him carefully.

“Yes, that would be me,” Vestra replied, and in a more soothing tone, added. “I thought, however, that it may be useful if I were to place myself at the crime scene, to make sure it is not disturbed, whilst you deal with these gentlemen in your professional capacity.”

A gentle emphasis on the words ‘professional capacity’ had the detective standing a little straighter. “’Tis a better part of a policeman’s work than it ought to be, sir, dealing with the public.”

“Quite so,” Vestra answered. “And my… companion here, Ferdinand von Aegir, is a military man like yourself. I am sure you can trust him to keep a watchful guard of the crime scene.”

The detective looked quite startled to be seen through so suddenly, which gave me a certain feeling of kinship with him. I saluted smartly. “Captain von Aegir, lately of the Merceus Cuirassiers.”

He returned the salute quite by instinct, I gathered, for his expression of slight bewilderment did not waver. “Corporal Jacques, sir,” he said. “I served with the 3rd Foot Guards—in my younger days, that is.”

“Well,” said I, “you can be quite certain that I will make sure the scene is not disturbed by anyone. It is vitally important that the police be able to do their work without interference—from one public servant to another.”

This connection, though slight, seemed to make up the Detective’s mind, and soon Vestra and I were charged with keeping a watchful eye over the body of Doctor Varley.

It was clear that it had taken the detective some pains in order to knock down the door, for there were multiple indents in the wood from repeated blows. It was almost a shame – it was an oaken door, thick and solid, as was the habit in the days when it was built. No doubt at one time this room had been the domain of someone of significantly higher status than the poor doctor; one who might need to host secret counsel behind its doors.

‘Ah!’ thought I, carefully stepping into the room to examine the other side of the door. ‘No wonder it was such trouble.’

From inside the room, the door had been locked in place with a metal bar. It appeared that the detective had not so much as battered down the door as he had eventually loosened the screws holding it to the wall. The room itself was much as anyone would expect from a scholar’s office; it was lined with books and there was a grand desk and chair in the centre of the room, a few other chairs of a less comfortable fashion arranged in front of it, meant for visitors.

I peered down at Doctor Varley’s body, which lay spread eagled beside the desk. I was not a medical man, but it did not take much genius to notice the bullet hole exactly over his heart – I supposed that must have been how he was killed. There was a small pool of blood on the floor. The poor devil had never stood a chance.

I had not known that Vestra was a ‘consulting detective’, but from the clinical and not at all disturbed manner in which he examined the body, I took it to be the truth.

I also took it as a personal slight. “What do you think you are doing?” I hissed. “We said we would not disturb the crime scene!”

“I am not disturbing a thing,” Vestra said, distracted. “I must make my observations before the evidence is handled by too many people.”

“That is police work!”

“Perhaps, but they are not near as good at it as I,” was the blunt response. “The example of the detective our there certainly does not fill me with confidence—did you see his uniform? It was very near to bursting at the seams, and worn thin to boot. A man who does not take much pride in his job, I should think.”

“Or he is lacking in funds to replace it,” I snapped, finding his judgements quite cruel to the poor detective, who had seemed earnest enough to me.

Vestra ignored this, intent on examining the body. “Hm, yes, and injury to the arm, here, which has bled a little; and it appears as though there was a severe blow to the head…”

I had not noticed these things in my own cursory examination, having been preoccupied by the gunshot wound. “So there was a fight between the doctor and the killer?”

“It would seem so.”

“I suppose it is not strange that nobody heard the scuffle, as the walls are so thick.”

“Not very strange,” Vestra said. I could not tell if he was agreeing with me or mocking my simple inference, as he was preoccupied with examining the head wound. “The indent here must have been caused by something with a long, flat edge.”

There was no object in the room which could cause such an injury, save for… “Perhaps he hit it against the edge of the desk.”

“There is no blood there.”

“Then the killer must have wiped it away, I suppose.” I could not think why they might have done so, however.

“Yes, if you suppose enough nonsensical things, any actions can begin to make sense.” Vestra tutted. “The foulest thing a detective can do is to twist facts to suit theories, instead of theories to suit facts.”

This was, I was later to learn, the mantra by which Vestra lived and breathed as a detective.

“Look at the room!” he pressed. “Does it look to you as though so violent a disagreement as to result in a man’s death took place here? Doctor Varley is obviously a fastidious fellow; every paper and item on his desk is arranged with exactness and symmetry; the books on his shelves are sorted by title and subject and all kept in quite exceptional condition; none have been ripped from their shelves or knocked askew; there is no blood on the rug except for where the body lies.

“Now tell me, what fight leaves so little imprint on the room in which it takes place?” He sneered. “Especially one in which the doctor’s life was at risk.”

“One of the trinkets on his desk appears to have fallen over,” was my somewhat sullen response. It was only a contradiction on a technicality, as Vestra was quite right that the room did not look like a fight to the death could have occurred within it.

This small observation, however, appeared to have thrown him. “What?”

“This, here—” I indicated a small object which I had seen during my service in the army, a good luck charm from the country of Brigid. “It is meant to sit upright.”

“I see,” Vestra said. His tone was quite wry. “And yet the sharp letter opener right next to this object remains in an exactly perpendicular to the lines of the desk. Quite uncanny that in the process of very delicately knocking over this one single object, the doctor did not think to snatch up a weapon which he might use in his defence.”

“Well, perhaps the fight did not take place here,” I mumbled, put off by his sarcasm. “Perhaps they were arguing out in the corridor and the doctor tried to retreat into the room – but he was already injured by then and not capable of fighting back, so the room was not disturbed. The doctor only knocked the desk as he fell, disturbing one small trinket.”

Vestra paused, appearing to give this some serious consideration. “How do you explain the head wound?”

“The culprit must have taken whatever cause it with him when he left, since it is not in the immediate vicinity.”

“Why would he do that?”

“Maybe it was valuable.” A sudden burst of inspiration caused me to add, “Maybe they argued over this object in the first place.”

“And how did the killer escape?”

“I—I do not know,” I was forced to admit. “But you have not discovered his method yet, either, so that should hardly count against me.”

“Hm,” Vestra said. “Well, it is not a bad theory for an amateur.”

This quite took the wind out of my sails. I thought I was seriously challenging his viewpoint.

“It is likely to be the theory the police wish to proceed with if they have their usual amount of sense,” he continued, “so in the spirit of cooperation, I must make a thorough examination of the room to make sure there is no other way of getting in and out other than the door our detective broke open. If there is, the theory may have some merit.”

“Well, there are bars over the windows,” said I. “Even if one were daring enough to climb about on the roofs from the fourth floor, one could not get out that way. Perhaps there is a secret passage of some sort? It is not impossible in a building such as this—some nobles wished to give themselves escape routes.”

“These are not insensible suggestions. We begin to make progress.” Vestra did not give me the time to rise to this barb as he added, “There could also be a priest hole, and the murderer is still in the room, hoping to remain there undiscovered until such time as he can make an escape.”

“What!” I exclaimed, significantly more alarmed than he.

To my relief, no such hiding place or secret corridor – or, more pertinently, a murderer hiding therein – was revealed by our investigations. Cut short as they were by the arrival of more officers, I still felt that we had made quite a thorough search of the room, but had nothing to show for it. It begged the question of where the murderer did go.

I had no ideas of my own, but I was certainly suspicious that Vestra did – and was not sharing them. This, even more than our disastrous first meeting, set me against the man. I knew that he could not have killed the doctor, though my darker thoughts certainly flirted with the idea of some elaborate scenario by which that was possible, but his disdain for the police certainly led me to believe that his motives were less than pure – a chance at oneupmanship, to prove his own superiority. I felt it my duty continue to shadow him to ensure that the investigation proceeded at the correct pace.

My conscience could have been quite settled on this matter if I had taken the time to look up the case which Vestra alluded to in his discussion with the officer, and if the reader has any concerns resulting from the biased descriptions of my past self, I can assure them that they, too, would be immediately ashamed of doubting a man’s character based on personal dislike if they knew the details of that investigation.

Alas, this lesson I had not learned then, and was not to learn for some time yet. Suffice it to say that in due time, all of Vestra’s secretive mannerisms were explained and justified.

Ferdinand waited anxiously for Hubert’s judgement.

It was the most difficult part he’d had to write thus far, trying to give a proper showing to Hubert’s methods of deduction and show how his own assumptions limited his ability to think critically about the case, but without giving away too obviously the solution for the readers—and to do all of this whilst earning Hubert’s approval.

He read with a frown, which Ferdinand knew was a sign of his earnest appraisal but which also filled him with a dreadful anxiety. Unable to help it, he tensed as Hubert looked up.

Of course, he noticed this at once. “Do not look like that. I am not about to tear your work to shreds! As I expected, it is wonderful. I would never trust anyone else to commit me to print.”

“But?” Ferdinand prompted.

Hubert so enjoyed his air of mystery that, as always when it was seen through, his face fell a little. He ought to be used to _Ferdinand_ doing it by now, however. “Well—it is not a large thing. I only feel that you need not constantly stress the limits of your judgement.”

_Is that all?_ Ferdinand was a little relieved. “I believe we already had this discussion.”

“Yes, but you did not let me finish,” Hubert said. “You do yourself a disservice, especially as the scene itself demonstrates you possess a much quicker mind than the average man. They will think it false modesty!”

Ferdinand opened his mouth to object.

“Besides, did you not say you were planning to discuss the Jeralt Eisner case in another book, if this one were to do well?”

He was forced to close his mouth again with a snap. “That is true,” he begrudgingly admitted, after a moment. “I suppose the impact will be much lessened should anyone take me advice here. And it does a disservice to Professor Eisner to neglect to give a complete account of Jeralt’s death…” Ferdinand could see Hubert beginning to look quite satisfied with himself and sighed. “Yes, yes; once again you demonstrate the folly of arguing with you.”

“I’m glad you have come to see my meaning,” Hubert said, giving him a small smile. When Ferdinand reached over to take the papers from him, prepared to make adjustment, he caught his hand. “I am not being contrary for the sake of it, I swear. It is only that as much as you wish to represent my detective skills in their best light, so it is equally important to me that everyone be able to see why you have become so indispensable to me.” He squeezed Ferdinand’s hand. “In every regard.”

The softness of his eyes and voice was too much; heedless of the mess he was making of the desk, Ferdinand leaned over it to kiss him. Hubert made a small, startled sound before he relaxed and cupped Ferdinand’s cheek.

Still, when they broke apart, he muttered, “The things that give you delight perplex me. What did I say to warrant such affection?”

“You always warrant such affection,” Ferdinand replied, laughing when Hubert blushed. “But really— _indispensable in every regard._ How can you say things like this, and yet still worry about whether you lack romantic inclination?”

“I am only speaking the truth!” he protested, the last word muffled by Ferdinand kissing him again. By the time they separated, he was smiling against Ferdinand’s lips. “But if it pleases you so to hear such small things, by all means, I will go on saying them.”

With Professor Hanneman having come under suspicion, I felt duty-bound to see him proved innocent, and I supposed that Vestra could not be without some sense of honour, for he begrudgingly agreed to work with me to ascertain the man’s innocence.

“And why are you so certain the professor is not the murderer?” Vestra demanded of me, as we settled in a cab on the way to the university.

“What are you about now?” I was exceedingly irritable after a night of little rest in a new place, worrying over the man’s future. “You said yourself that the man is no murderer!”

“Not so; I said he was not _the_ murderer,” Vestra replied. “I know why _I_ think so, and my reasoning is based on sound logic and facts – I have no such reason to trust yours.”

“What the devil are you on about?”

“I suppose you think ‘Professor Hanneman would never murder anyone!’” Vestra said coolly.

“You are certainly correct on that front!”

“Naive in the extreme. Any person is capable of murder under the right set of circumstances. You would do well to remember that.”

I was was rendered speechless by his appalling cynicism.

“I expected better of one who had been at war,” Vestra continued. “You ought to know that killing is the easy part. One only needs a reason.”

“If you find _killing_ to be the easy part,” I said icily, “that is your own character flaw, one which you ought not to assume of others.”

He regarded me in silence for a long moment. I glared back without flinching, quite roused by his comments.

After all that, he only sniffed and said, “All the same, I will insist on hearing your reasoning as a rational actor. No… sentiment.”

I was very tempted to ignore him or to only insist more than Professor Hanneman would never do such a thing as murder, but – this I was loathe to admit to Vestra himself, of course – his calm conviction had shaken me a little. His cynicism was not entirely misplaced—I had met many men in the army who were there for… less than noble intentions.

After a pause, I said, “Professor Hanneman has no motive.”

“However determined the police are to find one,” Vestra said in a wry tone. “And what else?”

“He is one of the preeminent academics in his field. If he were to take it upon himself to murder some poor fellow, he could conceive of a much cleverer fashion, not so like to be discovered, than shooting a man in broad daylight only a stone’s throw away from his own office.”

“Poorly supported conjecture,” Vestra said, “but I suppose you did make an effort.”

After stooping to his level to consider such a thing, to meet with so rude a response was vexing. “Look here—”

“Ah! Indeed, here we are.” Vestra hopped down from the carriage and the cab drew to a halt. He looked at me expectantly when I remained momentarily within, fuming at his conduct. “Well? You insisted on coming, so let us make haste.”

I took a moment to remind myself that the character—indeed, perhaps the very life—of a good, honourable man was on the line before I stepped out.

Vestra was not the kind of man to waste time. He was already well ahead of me, and I had to proceed with haste to match the speed of his purposeful strides.

The officers conducting their investigation were not best pleased to see us, but whatever ‘friend’ Vestra had yesterday referred to must have come through for him, for we were able to pass without more than a few pointed looks.

“Now then, to business,” Vestra said. He did not quite smile, but for the first time since our meeting, he approached a look of contentment. “Let us examine the area.”

“Should we not occupy ourselves with searching Doctor Varley’s study?” I asked. “That is where the murder took place.”

Vestra fixed me with a look of which I could not place the meaning, and then proceeded to ignore me. With a magnifying glass that he removed from an inside pocket of his coat, he scoured the floors and walls. After a few minutes of watching him, I grew bored, and turned to examine the scene of the crime. Before I could enter the room itself, however, a small streak of crimson on the wall caught my eye.

“Is this blood?” I asked.

“Naturally,” came Vestra’s voice from behind, startling me. “I noticed it yesterday. It is from the wound on the victim’s arm which I pointed out to you, of course.”

He recounted this in quite a bored tone as I examined the smear of blood—rather like the man had dragged his injured arm across the wall. I could just imagine it: he, already weak and stumbling, unable to support his own weight, falling against the frame of the door, forcing himself to take those last few steps. All the time, the author of his demise bore down on him.

I frowned. “Wait a minute. But this blood would have been on the other side of the door when it was closed. The good doctor must have been injured when he entered.”

“Hm, yes,” he came to stand beside me, although it appeared it was the stonework he was interested in. The university itself being and old and valued institution, some parts of the walls have been carved with intricate designs, smoothed over by the hands of many centuries. He did not appear to find what he was looking for, for he stepped back again, displeased. “I believe the police’s story – since I proved the impossibility of entering or exiting the room itself before this door was broken now by the detective – is now that Hanneman must have attacked him out here, and then the doctor retreated inside the room, whereby he then died of his injuries.”

I could not help but look askance at the officers minding the scene and then the heavy oak door. The bar with which it had been locked yesterday was as long as my arm and twice as thick. “But he was shot in the heart.”

“He was.”

“They are suggesting that a man who had just been shot in the heart had the strength to bar this door?” I asked incredulously.

“Do not worry overmuch about it; I expect there will be another alteration to this hypothesis soon enough,” he said. “And it will remain just as wrong, but that is by the by.”

“So then we return to the puzzle of the locked room,” I said. “We know the man was dead when the room was opened, so there must be some way to escape it that has not yet been discovered.” I paused. “Unless he was dead before the room was closed… oh, but then the culprit must have had some way to bar the door from the outside, or to escape from the inside having barred it, so it presents the same problem.”

“You are quite wrong, but at least you are thinking.” As I spluttered indignantly, Vestra shook his head. “We will do no more good here. Time to retire to the library.”

Without saying anything else, he strode away. Once again, I was forced to follow after him at a rather undignified pace. What did he mean by going to the library? Did he hope to look up a reference that would somehow help the case?

When I found him there, however, he was not looking at any of the books, but studying the remains of the fire with great interest.

“I take it that you believe the fire was not a coincidence?” I asked.

“You think it _was?_ ” he rejoined scornfully.

It did stretch the limits of possibility, but even so… “I fail to see the advantage it would provide our killer. It was after the murder happened.”

“A distraction after the fact can conceal any number of things,” Vestra said. “The chaos can be used to disguise one’s location at the time of the crime, to obfuscate things by contaminating a crime scene, to destroy the body itself, to remove barriers to one’s escape…”

I frowned. “Someone used the chaos to escape? But who?”

He sighed and ignored my question. “I’ll need some of the residue here for analysis. I’m certain there was some kind of accelerant used here, and it is best to be thorough about these things.”

His satisfied smile made him appear even more darkly sinister, like some kind of maniacal scientist examining his newest creation. Nonetheless, I had to give him a certain amount of credit for the seriousness with which he approached the task and his apparent expertise in it.

I was not to realise just how extensive this expertise was until some time later.


	3. Chapter 3

Professor Hanneman had not yet been arrested due to the lack of evidence against him, but had felt it prudent to withdraw from public life nonetheless. He remained within the city at the request of the police, but had sequestered himself away in the house of an absent colleague. When Vestra and I called upon him in the afternoon after our second visit to the university, he instructed us to use the servants’ entrance.

“I do apologise for all the cloak and dagger,” he said. “Or, rather, I apologise to Mr. von Aegir, as I know this is quite within your natural habitat, Hubert.”

It was still strange to me to hear _anyone_ refer to Hubert von Vestra with such familiarity, but I reminded myself that Professor Hanneman had been a friend of Vestra’s father, now deceased, and had probably known Vestra as a boy. They must be somewhat close despite all appearances, I supposed, or else Professor Hanneman would not be able to make a reference that went so totally over my head.

I was not given more time to consider what he might have meant, as Hanneman seized my hand and began to shake it with vigour. “And I cannot thank you enough for your help, Mr. von Aegir! Truly!”

“It is nothing you need thank me for,” I replied. “Anyone with a sense of decency could not possibly stand by as an innocent man’s name is dragged through the mud.”

Hanneman paused, slowly letting go of my hand. “Oh, yes, quite! But I was actually referring to your help with my research… Crests are exceedingly rare these days! How marvellous to have someone close at hand for study! And a Crest of the Saints themselves!”

I had not told Vestra of my Crest yet, but when I glanced at him sidelong, he did not look surprised. By this point into out acquaintance, neither was I surprised by the lack of surprise, although his peculiar skill at reading people still appeared sinister.

“Ah,” said I, “well, I am equally happy to assist in scientific inquiry.”

Vestra snorted.

Hanneman pursued a rather animated talk with us about Crestology for some time, despite what I saw were Vestra’s increasingly irritable attempts to interrupt. I, for one, found something quite endearing about the Professor’s enthusiasm, and even more endearing was the annoyance it caused Hubert von Vestra.

“I’m sure the contents of your next book will be _fascinating_ **,** Professor,” he snapped after several minutes, “but I must press you on the matter which we previously discussed.”

I was rather pleased to have my suspicions proved correct: it meant I was forming a more accurate judgment of Vestra’s character. The purpose of our visit had not, after all, been a mere social call.

“Oh yes!” Professor Hanneman adjusted his monocle. “The rumours about Doctor Varley. As you suspected, the man’s reputation was not as clean as he wished to portray. I have not been able to discover all the specifics, but I know a few colleagues were relieved of great debts when he passed. One was willing to disclose some detail.”

“Debts?” I asked, surprised. “He was a moneylender?”

“Not quite,” Vestra said, tugging his gloves over his hands with an air of great satisfaction. “I require a name, Professor.”

“And I am about to provide! I am not so old that I will forget basic instructions.” From one of his inside pockets, he produced a sheet of paper, folded over several times so that none of what was written on it was visible.

Vestra unfolded it delicately and scanned it. “Good. I have what I need. Thank you, Professor.”

He did not elucidate further; instead, without even saying good-bye to Professor Hanneman, he began to leave by the same way we came, forcing me to bid as hasty a farewell as I could manage and to practically fly down the stairs after him.

I was quite disturbed to find him smiling as he hailed a cab. As I paused at the bottom of the stairwell to catch my breath, he waved me over with impatience. “Come, man, if you insist on seeing the venture through to the end.”

“To the end?” I repeated.

“Indeed.” Vestra went so far as to smile. There was a gleeful light in his eyes and the smile revealed all of his teeth, like a cat prepared to pounce. “I now have everything I need to reveal the true murderer.”

“You finally know who did it?”

“Finally? Ha! There was only one possibility from the very beginning; it is just that I will soon have the proof I require to have them arrested.”

By this time, he was climbing into a cab, giving our destination, to my consternation, as the university grounds and not the police station.

“Do not keep me in false suspense,” I said. “Who did it, Vestra?”

The ink had barely dried on Ferdinand’s first draft of their fateful visit to Professor Hanneman when the man himself came to call on them.

“I apologise for the late hour,” Hanneman said, although it had only just gone four o’clock, which was still sociable hours by Ferdinand’s reckoning. “It’s just that I happened to be in the area when I recalled that you were working on that book, and my curiosity got the better of me!”

“Well, you are in luck!” Ferdinand tried to disguise his nervousness through excessive cheer. “I have just finished a scene in which you have a prime appearance!”

Hanneman brightened. “By your tone, I take it I would be permitted to read it?”

“You cannot be as critical as Hubert, so it cannot hurt.”

“You do him a disservice!” Hanneman protested. “He is much more sensitive with his critique these days. Why, I have even recommended his proof-reading to some of my colleagues in relevant fields, without fear of becoming _persona non grata_ for the insults he delivers to them.”

Ferdinand laughed. “I know, I know; it is just such a reflex to tease him, I do it even when he is not here.”

“Ah! Have I missed him, then? A shame.”

“Detective Ladislava required his input on a case of extreme importance which, I quote, ‘had them all stumped.’” Ferdinand glanced at the clock. “Hubert said to expect him back within the hour. If you would like to wait, I can prepare us both a pot of tea.”

“What a wonderful suggestion, thank you,” Professor Hanneman said, eyeing the stack of papers on Ferdinand’s desk greedily.

The tea gave Ferdinand a way to busy himself and turn his back while Hanneman familiarised himself with his written doppelganger. His occupation with the tea, however, only served to delay the inevitable. When Ferdinand returned with the tea, his stomach sank upon immediately recognising the look of disappointment on Hanneman’s face.

The professor noticed him watching and returned the page to Ferdinand’s desk with a sheepish expression. “Oh, do not mistake me! You clearly have a talent with the pen. I could not help but feel, however, that it was a little… abrupt?”

Squinting at the page, Ferdinand thought he could see what Hanneman meant. The fact that it was a single _page_ was, itself, perhaps somewhat telling. He found it so difficult to master the balance between not including too much irrelevant detail and creating prose which did not abruptly skip from one fact to the next like a bucking horse.

“Also,” Hanneman added, in a more eager tone, “if you are taking some liberties with the events as they occurred – which naturally one must do after so much time has elapsed – it might be a nice opportunity to educate your readers on the fascinating field of Crestology! This was near to the publication of my last book, as I recall, and I had made some very interesting discoveries, thanks in no small part to your own participation in my studies—”

Ferdinand listened to Hanneman continue on about his Crestology research with a lightening heart. The blow of Hanneman’s critique was much softened with the reveal that it was partially motivated by self-interest… _It certainly wouldn’t do to recount the entire conversation, or it would be an entire chapter by itself, but perhaps a little more discourse would not be remiss…_

Without even realising what he was doing, Ferdinand found himself migrating to his desk and picking up his pen and a fresh sheet of paper, taking notes. The only sound was the scribbling of the pen’s nib until there was a _clink_ of china and he suddenly remembered the presence of his guest.

“Professor Hanneman!” he blurted. “How rude of me! You have my most—”

“Not at all, Ferdinand; you mustn’t apologise for being gripped by your subject of choice, or else I will be forced to apologise for all the conversations I turn onto Crestology, and as I am not getting any younger, I would hesitate to spend so much of my time on so small a thing.” He waved his hands with a gracious smile. “Please, continue as though I am not here!”

Ferdinand’s instinct was to protest – all of his noble upbringing screamed at the rudeness of ignoring a guest – but it felt almost as though the words were crowding his brain and making it difficult to think of anything else. Rather like hypnosis, he found himself inexorably drawn to the page.

Despite the police’s suspicions against Professor Hanneman, they hadn’t enough grounds for an arrest, and so the man was able to remain free; he had felt it prudent, however, to retire from the public eye, and was currently living in the home of a colleague away for travel. I had had cause to call upon him a few times during the course of the investigation – which Vestra did not attend – and he had always asked that I use the servants’ entrance to avoid unwanted attention, a request he made again when Vestra sent round a note stating his intentions to call upon the man late into the afternoon.

The professor greeted us both warmly, although it surprised me for a moment when he greeted Vestra quite jovially as “Hubert!” before I remembered Hanneman mentioning that he had been a good friend of Vestra’s father. “Your suspicions have proved correct once again, though I was never in any doubt,” Hanneman continued, before Vestra could say anything. “I have found the information you were looking for.”

I had suspected that Vestra’s purpose was not a mere social call, but all the same this startled me. “What information?”

Hanneman fixed Vestra with a disapproving frown that had no effect on him what-so-ever. “You are not keeping the man informed even though he has graciously offered his assistance? Really, Hubert.”

“I did not ask for _his_ help, Professor.”

Vestra may have meant this as a hint, but it was either lost on or ignored by Hanneman, who instead grasped my hand and shook it vigorously. “I, for one, cannot thank you enough, Mr. von Aegir! I do apologise for all the cloak-and-dagger, your understanding is much appreciated – Hubert is quite used to such things but I suppose it is different for a man of your career—former career—”

“I am quite capable of understanding the need for discretion!” I assured him. “And you need not thank me – no man with a shred of honour could possibly stand by whilst an innocent man is accused of murder! Rest assured, we will have it proved in no time that you had nothing to do with the poor man’s death.”

“On which point—”

Vestra’s voice was swallowed by Hanneman’s booming enthusiasm as he responded, “Oh, of course, I appreciate your help with the investigation also! But I was actually referring to your agreeing to help m with my Crestology studies! You must know how exceedingly rare Crests are these days, and to find a willing participant who not only possesses one, but the Crest of Saint Cichol at that—”

“Perhaps you would be better served to think of this when your name is cleared,” Vestra said pointedly.

“Oh.” Hanneman quite deflated all of a sudden. “I suppose. Still, I have been hard at work on my book, having not much else to occupy my time at the moment during my, ah, _sabbatical_ **,** and I am very excited to incorporate my studies of the Cichol Crest into my latest theory. Although all Crests are rare these days, the Saints’ Crests have proved more enduring than those of the Elites; many Elites’ Crests are now totally extinct, whereas Saints’ Crests still rarely produce even Major Crests. I myself bear a Crest of Indech, and combined with Mr. von Aegir’s Crest of Cichol and another source whom I shall not name, means I am now only missing a Crest of Cethleann—”

Vestra let out a deep, almost aggressive sigh. “Professor, this is _fascinating_ **,** but I have to protest…”

“Oh, yes, yes—please excuse me, I have a habit of getting carried away when it comes to my research.” Hanneman offered an apologetic smile in my direction. In retrospect it was obvious that he offered this apology to me as the most unfamiliar with this tendency of his, but at the time my mind was so over-loaded with information that I am afraid I merely blinked at him quite stupidly.

“The matter I asked you to look into?” Vestra pressed.

“The good doctor, yes.” Hanneman stroked his beard. “Or I should simply say, ‘Doctor Varley’, as his reputation for good appears to have been severely over-stated.”

Ferdinand was briefly startled from his rapture by Hanneman clapping his hands together delightedly. “Oh, that is much more like it! It is so wonderful to use fiction to encourage more intellectual pursuits, too! Ah, but I see that I disturb you. I am now contented and shall sit and enjoy my tea in silence…”

If he kept or broke this promise, Ferdinand could not say, for he dived back in to the writing before the words had a chance to flee him, and the room around him became barely more real than a dream as his pen struggled to keep pace with the story in his head.

“Goddess!” I said. “And everyone seemed to think him so respectable when we spoke of him.”

“He didn’t cheat his way into that doctorate, and a man of that intellect surely knows the power of a good reputation.” Vestra smiled to himself, an expression which somehow conveyed satisfaction rather than joy. “As we will soon see, one’s reputation can be used to deflect a great deal of suspicion where it otherwise ought to occur. You have details, of course?”

This last he addressed to Professor Hanneman, who frowned. “None of my colleagues were willing to share their stories with the police, as you guessed might happen, but they were willing to share their understanding’s of the doctor’s methods. It seems that the doctor first got into blackmail; the nature of this secret I cannot divulge, but one of my colleagues was once Doctor Varley’s lecturer during his undergraduate years. This appears to be when Varley’s criminal activity began.”

“This also tallies with my own findings.” Vestra nodded. “If he was in the habit of blackmailing for money in his younger years, he was capable of concealing it even from me.”

I could not take this revelation so lightly. “Doctor Varley was a blackmailer? How foul!”

“For a time, yes…” Professor Hanneman sighed. “And I suppose blackmail, by it’s nature, is one of those things one never quite leaves behind without completely redeeming oneself… As that may be, from the words of this colleague of mine, which I hold to have a great deal of authority on this subject, it appears that the doctor ‘got wise’ to the dangers of this method.”

“Dangers?”

“Blackmail is an inherently perilous operation,” Vestra said. “There inevitably comes a point where the victim cannot afford to give any more – but they still cannot afford for their secret to be made known, either. Their minds will, eventually, hit upon the only solution remaining to them…”

“To murder their blackmailer,” I concluded. “What a disturbing thought. I cannot say that I would not hold any sympathy for someone made a murderer by such desperation.”

“And how do you feel about those who kill to escape debt?”

“Debt?”

“That’s right,” Professor Hanneman said. “It appears that after a while, Doctor Varley used the funds acquired from his blackmail career to begin buying up debts – less dangerous than blackmail, or so I hear. My source said that Varley had not contacted him about his dark secret for several years, until he required a recommendation to come to his current position.”

“So our killer was in debt to Doctor Varley?” I asked. “But surely this – rather unfortunately, I hasten to add – only serves to cast suspicion on Professor Hanneman’s colleagues instead? I doubt that any of them committed this murder if they have been so helpful to our investigation, but it must be considered…”

Vestra jerked and regarded me with a surprised stare for a moment. I bristled at the implied insult; of course I could follow such basic logic that a moneylender’s debtors might have motive to kill him, and the moment passed as Vestra’s normal sneer made its reappearance. “We are, of course, looking for a debtor of Doctor Varley’s who has _not_ been so forthcoming. It is just a matter now of proving the link, and I have an idea of where to start—”

“There is one more thing you should know,” Professor Hanneman said. “As well as callously demanding payment from those who owed him money, it seems that Doctor Varley was also in the habit of encouraging his fellows into risky investments with money which he lent to them at outrageous interest rates, and then requiring repayments to begin as soon as their investment turned up poor.” He shook his head. “I suppose that is why he took such a dislike to me! Being independently wealthy, I was out of reach of his schemes!”

Vestra snorted. “Of course the police happen upon one of the only academics who _totally_ lacked motive to kill him… thank you, Professor, you have been most helpful. Good-bye.”

Ferdinand paused to find the sheet of paper with the last draft of this scene on it, intending to see if the ending of it could simply be copied over, but he stopped in his tracks, disoriented as the world around him did not meet his expectations. When did it grow so dark outside? When did his back begin to ache so? And—

“Hubert, when did you return home?”

“He rises from his trance at last,” Hubert said dryly. He’d drawn up a chair next to Professor Hanneman and their cups were now filled with a dark liquid that could only be coffee. “I have been home near an hour, my dearest idiot.”

“What—?” Ferdinand whirled around in horror, ignoring the protests of his stiff muscles, to find that three hours had passed since he last looked at the clock. His face reddened under the force of a burning sense of shame. “Oh _no._ Professor Hanneman, I—I am so sorry—”

Hubert’s chuckle did not make him feel better. “If the professor accepts this apology, I will call him a hypocrite.”

“I will not tolerate any accusations of hypocrisy from _you,_ young man,” Hanneman groused. “Anyway, my conscience is clear; I encouraged Ferdinand to take advantage of this moment of inspiration! Actually, it was quite fascinating to watch another experience such intense focus.”

This did little to alleviate Ferdinand’s guilt. All the pride he had in being a good host, thrown away in the space of a single evening! How terrible to ignore a guest so fully, and to not even notice when his beloved came home—

“Oh, do stop castigating yourself,” Hubert said, with a fondness that he tried very poorly to mask as irritation. “Before you think about dinner—I see the realisation on your face now—it is all arranged; we are going to dine out tonight. Yes, Hanneman will be joining us.”

Ferdinand’s lips flickered into a smile without his permission. _Hubert always becomes so conscious of himself when he have guests._ “Well, that is the least we can do after my frightful display of manners,” he said.

Despite the nagging thought that he ought to feel awful, somehow Hubert’s presence made it impossible to be so dour.

“Since you have returned to the land of the living, I will go hail us a cab.” Hubert stood up smoothly. “I know a restaurateur who owes me several favours, so do not worry yourself about us being unable to secure a table, I can _hear_ you beginning to fuss over it…”

His voice faded away as he left the room. Ferdinand quickly stilled his hand, which he’d found automatically reaching to flick away his hair—a nervous tic. _He always knows…_

Hanneman only chuckled at the display. “Yes, you complement each other very well – I can hardly believe this is the same young man I knew five years ago.”

“I thought you knew one another quite well?” Ferdinand asked.

“Oh, after a fashion, I suppose that is true,” Hanneman said. “One cannot help learning things about the children of one’s friends, and as a child, one cannot help but become accustomed to the presence of the friends of one’s parents… for all that, I would not say we were _close,_ however. I was one of his more useful acquaintances, and so he was careful to maintain our connection, but it was not really more than that—certainly, I would not have been invited to dine with him like this.”

Ferdinand stewed on this, silent.

“Ah, perhaps I sound like I am criticising your beloved. That is not my intention.” Hanneman shook his head. “All I mean to say is… you have been quite good for him, I think.”

“I do not feel have wrought such significant changes as to deserve this much credit,” Ferdinand said, very careful not to let his words become too pointed. “Hubert is responsible for his own character.”

“Is that how you see it?” he replied. “Well, I will not say he is _not_ responsible. It is impressive, the positive change which he has made to his manners over the past few years… yet I do think there is something to be said for the idea of having someone to alter oneself _for._ ”

Ferdinand frowned.

Hanneman raised his hands in surrender. “I see that I am beginning to offend. I do beg your pardon. It is only this old man’s opinion, and on the study of _character,_ I do not claim to be an expert.”

He was saved from having to come up with a reply by the reappearance of Hubert himself. The man appeared in the doorway with a scowl. “What, and you do not even have your coats? The cab is waiting and so is dinner.”

Ferdinand scrambled to make apologies as well as guard himself against the chill evening air, recognising the tartness in Hubert’s voice as sincere annoyance. He could not help but remember, however, when he and Hubert had first lived together, when the annoyance would undoubtedly have been expressed with a great many more insults.

He still could not help but feel that Professor Hanneman ascribed too much of this miracle to Ferdinand alone, but perhaps it was not the attribution which concerned him, but the one-sidedness of the praise. Hanneman had only been briefly acquainted with Ferdinand when he first came to Enbarr; he could not know the character of someone had only just met with the same intimacy of someone he had known since he was a boy.

Yet, in writing this book, Ferdinand had been forced to confront many particulars of his younger self which he might have wished forgotten. It was difficult to read his account of that first meeting with Vestra and not cringe at his own excessive pride – certainly, Hubert should not have been so blunt… but blunt was _all_ he had been until Ferdinand had taken offence at the lack of grace with which he dared address Captain Ferdinand von Aegir! The inability to compromise, the refusal to accept his own humbled status with dignity, wanting to be recognised as something he was not, for talents he did not possess…

Hubert had never responded well to _that_ Ferdinand, which was no surprise. Just as he was skilled in seeing through obscure problems, he’d seen through the grace and manners Ferdinand used to carry himself with, which for most people were sufficient to leave a pleasant impression.

Not for Hubert. He demanded real character, not superficiality. For the first time, there had been someone who expected there to be depth to Ferdinand’s talk of manners and gentility and honour and charity—things that he had decided were important characteristics for one with a noble upbringing, but which he had become so used to shallowly enacting as a show for the Society of the city… looking the part of ‘the noble’ instead of _being_ the part.

Hubert refused to acknowledge such mere play-acting, and Ferdinand had been forced to deliver on his beliefs of what it meant to be noble.

Without him, Ferdinand would have lost his sense of self. So if he was to be credited with creating the best version of Hubert von Vestra, well, Hubert deserved the same acknowledgement for his part in making Ferdinand von Aegir.

In the cab, Hubert jolted him from his thoughts by leaning over to mutter, “I’m afraid you have not the complexion for brooding; I must insist that you stop at once.”

Ferdinand smiled. Hubert did not like to be overtly affectionate in public, but he showed his concern in subtle ways. “I am terribly sorry. I have been quite neglecting you. Why, you did not even have a chance to tell me how trivially easy it was to solve Detective Ladislava’s case!”

“Indeed, I have been suffering in silence for all this time,” Hubert said gravely.

Ferdinand laughed and felt his low mood slip away. The most important thing, after all, was that they were together. “Well then, it will not do to keep you waiting any longer. I insist you give me all the particulars at once.”


	4. Chapter 4

I was quite disturbed to find Vestra smiling as he hailed a cab. As I paused at the bottom of the stairwell to catch my breath, he waved me over with impatience. “Come, man, if you insist on seeing the venture through to the end.”

“To the end?” I repeated.

“Indeed.” Vestra went so far as to smile. There was a gleeful light in his eyes and the smile revealed all of his teeth, like a cat prepared to pounce. “I now have everything I need to reveal the true murderer.”

“You finally know who did it?”

“Finally? Ha! There was only one possibility from the very beginning; it is just that I will soon have the proof I require to have them arrested.”

By this time, he was climbing into a cab, giving our destination, to my consternation, as the university grounds and not the police station.

“Do not keep me in false suspense,” I said. “Who did it, Vestra?”

“Detective Jacques, of course! The only one with the opportunity – and now I am closing in on proof of his motive. I believe we will be able to discover the evidence we need at the university.”

I was quite flabbergasted by this pronouncement. It took me several seconds to discover my voice. “Detective—Vestra! How could you possibly say such an absurd thing! The detective was not even on the premises when Doctor Varley was killed!”

“Can you prove he was not?” Vestra inquired with self-satisfied, silken tones.

I was forced to admit that I could not; it is, of course, near impossible to prove a negative. “Still, you would have to prove that he _was_ there and able to murder the doctor, which I think would be near as difficult, as the fact still remains that no one has any idea how the murderer was able to escape from the room! Or,” I added, putting forward the police’s most recent idea with more dubiousness, “that he rigged up some device to lock the room from the outside.”

“Oh, yes,” he replied. The self-satisfied look still had not left his face. “The police are rather set on this idea that Varley died when that door was locked, aren’t they? It is quite convenient for our killer, so I suspect he has done all he can to encourage it, but the fact is that when the door was locked, Doctor Varley was still amongst the living.”

“He was still…!” I began, outraged, before trailing off as confusion descended over me instead. “He was still… what?”

“The entire case has rested on this supposition, that the shot that was heard by everyone is the one which killed the doctor.” Vestra sat back in the seat of the cab, his expression calm. Quite bizarrely, he reminded me of my old schoolteachers, settling in for a lecture. “If you do away with this assumption, the entire timeline of events becomes clear. There was a shot at this time, yes, but Doctor Varley _was not yet dead._ ”

By this time, I was so overwhelmed by confusion that my insides had all gone quite numb. “But… he was shot in the heart.”

“He was—eventually. However, that was not his only injury, as you ought to recall.”

“The wound to the head as though bludgeoned… The wound on his arm?” A terrible realisation began to creep over me. “The trail of blood along the wall…”

Vestra clapped his hands together with a genuine smile. “Indeed! I admit I am impressed that you made the connection so quickly!”

The compliment was somewhat undermined by the emphasis he placed on ‘you’, but my mind was racing far too fast to be bothered by a mere insult just then. “So the first shot—you’re saying that it was only a glancing blow? Enough to nick his arm—” Once the hint had been given, the picture fell into face with awful quickness. “He stumbled down the hallway, leaning against the wall for support—he likely had already been struck on the head, then? He was woozy—retreating… retreating to a place of safety…”

“I suspect the blow to the head came from one of the library shelves; I doubt, with such an injury, Varley could have run much further than the distance from there to his office,” Vestra said with a flourish. “So Varley retreated to his office. With its thick door, it surely could not be beaten down. It was impossible to discover the murderer’s escape route, or a contraption for locking the door, because such a thing never existed in the first place—it was locked from the inside because Doctor Varley locked himself in!”

“And if that is true,” I said, slowly, “then it must equally be true that whoever shot the doctor in the head must have done so after the room was opened by Detective Jacques…” My heart sank. “The man was alone when it was opened because of the fire in the library…”

“A scenario that our murderer likely arranged himself,” Vestra said. “You begin to see! Once you do away with this foolish attachment to the ‘locked room mystery’, the whole picture becomes utterly obvious!”

His arrogance, his excessive pride, his near-cheerful gloating… it all quite broke me.

“How _dare_ you go on in such a self-congratulatory manner!” I thundered. “You have done nothing except to expound upon your own talents, blathering on about your _great skill_ as a detective.”

So overcome was I with anger that had we not been in a moving cab, I might have shoved the man. As it was, when he tried to shift away from me in the confined space, I grabbed him by the arm and refused to let go.

Through gritted teeth, I spat, “Yet despite all your posturing, you fail to make the most basic realisation—Doctor Varley was still alive when we gathered outside his room! _We left him to die!_ I do not care what sort of monster he is made out to be; no man deserves to be killed, helpless and alone. And this damned detective whom you have been mocking so insistently—if he has been forced into this by tremendous debt, then the man’s life—to say nothing of his family’s—has been ruined twice over!”

The hand which gripped Vestra’s arm was beginning to shake with the force of my grip. I forced myself to remove it before I could do even more damage to a man who, clearly, had no reason to let me off lightly for such an assault. I fixed my gaze on the buildings passing by, for it made me furious to look upon the man’s face after his shameless bragging. Still, my voice was low and extremely bitter when I finished with, “If you had really been as clever as you claim, perhaps you could have foreseen the danger and prevented the whole sordid mess to begin with.”

Silence fell. The cab turned a corner and I recognised the buildings as being very near to the university. I could not imagine that Vestra’s pride would allow him to tolerate my presence after such a diatribe against him, and so I feared I must expend some of my limited funds to speed home as soon as I alighted—not to mention that I suspected I would soon have to find new lodgings, an endeavour I could not expect to complete on short notice without considerable expense—

“You are quite right.”

The utterance was quiet, but it hit me with the shock of a bullet. I turned my head with enough force to nearly strain it, staring at Vestra’s grave face with open-mouthed surprise.

“As much as I castigate others for their foolishness, how much more foolish are my own actions, and how much more culpable am I, if, as you say, I have the greater capacity to prevent it?”

This was not the lesson I had intended the man to take; but, despite all my dislike of him, I would have been shocked to find any soul who could look upon the drawn and concerted face, the expression of a man facing a colossal error, and not feel as though whatever rebuke they could deliver would mean little to the guilty ruminations within.

Whatever conclusions he would draw from such brooding would be between him and his own conscience. At that moment, the cab drew up outside the university, and more pressing matters raised their heads.

“You said there was a key piece of evidence,” I said, rousing Vestra from his thoughts. “Something which you had not yet discovered. What is it? More importantly, where?”

He shook himself and did not answer me immediately. I had to contain my impatience until he had satisfied matters with the cabbie; he did not ask the man to wait, and the cab drove off and was soon out of sight.

“‘What’ is quite a simple matter,” Vestra said. It could be attributed to my wishful thinking, but I judged his tone to be more measured and reasonable than his prior self-importance. “A man such as the doctor, with his fingers in so many pies, could not possibly memorise all of his debtors information and his ill-gotten gains therefrom. Therefore, he must have had some kind of accounting book to keep track of this information.”

I frowned. “The police would surely have made it known if they had found such a volume… but how do you know the murderer has not already disposed of it?”

“There was no time.” Vestra began to walk into the university ground, his long strides and hurry making it difficult to keep up with him. “You will recall that on the day in question, I remarked upon the Detective’s ill-fitting uniform, which tells us that he could not have concealed it upon his person.”

I recalled that the remarks had been rather mean-spirited, but his account was more or less true. “He may have had a chance to remove it at another time.”

“Not so!” he declared. “As we have established, Detective Jacques would not have been able to search the office until he murdered Varley, as the doctor had locked himself within. And we were there to volunteer our services to watch over the crime scene until the police arrived—luck falling in our favour on this occasion, as they were able to respond quite rapidly—more rapidly, I believe, than our murderer accounted for. It was not possible to destroy the book before more police arrived, and since then, the crime scene has been under careful watch. The window in which our fellow would have been able to discover this volume is between his directing the academics to the library and coming there himself in order to take his statements and keep up appearances, which is a rather narrow window of opportunity.

“This leads me to believe he must have hidden the book somewhere on the university premises, with the intention of recovering it later to dispose of it properly. It therefore must be within a reasonable distance of Doctor Varley’s office, and there it still lies, undiscovered.”

“Well then, where is it?” I asked. “We must find it before Detective Jacques has the chance to do so himself! Who knows if he has already managed to find an unguarded moment to take it back!”

“I’m afraid,” Vestra said seriously, “that I have not the faintest idea.”

As the reader may imagine, this caused me some consternation, which carried me up the stairs to the now-infamous wing of the university where the murder had taken place.

It was quite strange to come across the place without the bustle and panic of the day of the murder, or even the business of the police investigation, but of course this was the normal state of this place. And, hopefully, all would soon return to that placid norm without the dark cloud of an unsolved murder hanging over their heads.

For a moment, I worried that the police had already vacated the premises, leaving the murderer plenty of opportunity to retrieve the important book, until someone tapped me on the shoulder. “Sir,” the woman said—tall, straight-backed, and with mousey-brown hair that had been scraped into a neat bun. “This area is off limits whilst the police continue their investigation. May I ask what you are doing here?”

Vestra came upon the scene before I could formulate a reply, looking singularly unhurried. “Do not fear, Officer Ladislava, he is with me.”

“Mr. von Vestra.” The officer inclined her head. “Very well then. My apologies for disturbing you, sir.”

“Not at all; you were only doing your job. I am Ferdinand von Aegir,” I added, as Vestra had made no move to introduce me.

Officer Ladislava did not seem to be in the slightest bit affected by this information. Without changing expression, she turned to Vestra and said, “I have been keeping careful watch, but no one has approached the scene – even the academics prefer to take the long way round, avoiding the place.”

I have Vestra a reproachful look. “You ought to have said there was an officer posted here. My nerves were quite shot!”

“I thought that was your left shoulder,” Vestra said lazily. “But to give an answer; I could not be sure the police had taken my advice – they are often insensible to the logic of my methods.”

“No other suspects have presented themselves by their approach,” Ladislava said. Her expression had still not altered, but she was staring at Vestra rather hard.

“That is to be expected,” I explained gently, “as the suspect is—”

“Hold!” Vestra interrupted with a sour expression. “You cannot go blabbing to simply anyone about the case! What if the suspect were to catch wind of it?”

I sighed. “So I supposed you have been going about ordering people to do this and that with no rhyme or reason to it?”

His lips thinned. “The logic would present itself momentarily if one would just pause to _think_ **.** ”

“I will take that as a ‘yes’.” I turned to Officer Ladislava. “If, say, I were to tell you that a suspect under consideration was a detective, would you then run off and inform as many of your colleagues as possible, or might you decide to keep this information within a close, trusted circle?”

There was a pause where Ladislava broke the stoic demeanour to direct a dark glower towards Vestra. “I, _of course,_ would never do anything to endanger an investigation, sir, even if a suspect was one of our own.”

“There you have it,” I said to the consulting detective, who had his own dark expression fixed on me. “Communication provides a simple solution to many of one’s problems, I find.”

Vestra snorted, but his wit must have failed him, for he made no cutting counterargument and instead changed the subject: “In your hurry to arrive, I suppose you have not taken care to notice any place where our suspect may have stashed this important clue?”

“I did not see any such place,” I admitted.

“As I suspected, you were not looking very carefully,” he replied. “No matter; none of them held the item we are looking for, in any case.”

He seemed to have recovered some of his self-importance, for he strode past Officer Ladislava without another word.

I sighed again. Here I had been hoping that my diatribe in the cab might have gotten the man to reassess himself, but that was too much to wish for, I supposed.

“Thank you for your vigilance, Officer,” I said to Ladislava. “You have been most helpful.”

“I am only doing my job, sir,” she replied, but she stood a little straighter as I passed into the office beyond.

Vestra was occupying himself with examining the window ledge, which was a place that it would never have occurred to me to examine.

“So, the detective likely left this book within the room?” I asked.

“It appears that way,” Vestra said. “I doubt Detective Jacques had time to go farther afield, and in a state of panic, the human mind often struggles to see beyond its immediate surroundings.”

I surveyed the room with a frown. The ‘immediate surroundings’ did not precisely present themselves with a multitude of hiding places. Varley was a meticulous individual and had kept his study in a very neat and orderly manner. There were no large objects on display which one might hide things in; nor paintings which might conceal a secret safe; nothing except for the bookshelves along the walls, which were already crammed full. It was hard to imagine that even a loose floorboard under the large rug would not have been met by him with repulsion and immediately remedied—

Bookshelves.

“Vestra,” I said slowly, “do you believe there is such a thing as being too clever?”

“That is as leading a question as I have ever heard,” he replied dryly. “You ought to simply make your point.”

I gestured towards the shelves. “What better hiding place could there be for hiding a tree than in a forest – or for a book…”

It was somewhat satisfying to see Vestra freeze for a moment before cursing under his breath. “Of course! How stupid!”

The momentary triumph was dampened by the scale of the task ahead of us – there must have been hundreds of books in Varley’s office. “At least,” I muttered, mainly to myself, “we can be sure of finding the right volume eventually, even if it requires us to check every single—”

In three animated strides, Vestra crossed the room, plucking a single green, leather-bound tome from the shelves. “I have it!”

I gaped at him. “You cannot possibly—with only a glance—”

He handed the book to me without examining its contents. I opened the cover with unnecessary vigour and was infuriated to find it full of names, dates and figures… it surely must have been Varley’s illicit accounts. All doubt was removed when I came across the name of our detective, one of the most recent entries, the space for Varley’s income from the man left unfilled – maybe Jacques was supposed to make another deposit for Varley when they got into their fight.

Vestra’s smirk greeted me when I lifted my head from the book, and instead of joy at having found the decisive piece of evidence, I was irritated by the man’s ego. “You could not have pulled this out by pure luck. It’s impossible!”

“Do not confuse the impossible with the improbable,” he said, shaking his head. “But of course it was not luck; with some consideration, it was easy to deduce the book’s location – Varley’s organisation is so strict, so precise, that his book, although with a false title to give the illusion of belonging, is quite out of place amongst the doctor’s geology books, don’t you think?”

I had no doubt that if I examined the shelves I would find this to be true, but it would take me considerably longer to reach the same conclusion. I groaned. “If there were a story, your arrogance would have earned you quite a satisfying comeuppance by now.”

“Ah, yes,” Vestra said. “You are quite obsessed with all things being proper and right – now there, truly, is an impossible thing.” His metaphorical feathers remained quite unruffled, and I drew myself to my fullest height, before he quite undercut my indignation by adding, “Although you may recall that the purpose of this adventure was to clear an innocent man’s name, not for the purposes of ‘character development’.”

“Are you sure that is not a little too on the nose?” Hubert asked.

“I cannot help it if that is what you actually said!” Ferdinand protested. “Besides, it is all leading to a thematically coherent conclusion, I promise.”

“Even when writing non-fiction, you have a storyteller’s sensibilities,” he said dryly. “Luckily, I have managed to arrange my affairs in a narratively satisfying manner. You are quite welcome.”

“There is a certain poetry to beginning our relationship at such odds, only to find common ground as we grew closer.” Ferdinand was aware that he was smiling at Hubert rather stupidly, but he could not help it – it _was_ beautifully poetic, and there was always such joy in a well-told story.

“You are a sap,” Hubert declared. “It is positively sickening.”

“Well, certainly, it is catching,” he replied. “For a man who claims to despise _romances,_ you have said a few things which would put a bard to shame.”

Hubert grumbled, but he revealed the truth of the matter by coming to wind his arms around Ferdinand’s neck, planting a gentle kiss by his temple. “Yes – you have quite corrupted me. You must keep this to yourself, however, for I do have my reputation to think of.”

“Indeed, if you could not terrify strangers, you might have to actually converse with them,” Ferdinand said cheerfully.

He snorted. “Such insults from my beloved. Am I to take the hint that my presence is not wanted?”

“It _is_ rather hard to write with you draped over me.”

With a dramatic sigh, he straightened. “I will endeavour not to take offence at this blatant rejection. Would you like some more tea?”

“Oh, yes!” Ferdinand brightened. “Brew me some of the Saints’ tea, the dear one – I think I am nearly finished and it would be nice to celebrate.”

“Ah, yes, I can tell is it expensive, for it is nearly drinkable,” Hubert said. “If it is a celebration, I think I will join you.”

“You know you are always welcome to.”

Ferdinand returned to the page, giddy with delight – both from the near-completion of the manuscript and from Hubert’s good mood. Perhaps he would need to expand this denouement later, but he has already through of a perfect ending, and he was itching get it out the his before before it slipped away from him.

In truth, the ending of a case is normally considerably more dull than the dramatic mystery plays of the stage would have one believe. With the key piece of evidence in hand, Vestra presented his suspicions to the police, and the arrest was soon made. Detective Jacques, a soldier indeed, honourably confessed when it was clear the game was up. Yes, he had become indebted to Varley through some bad investments; he had come to ask for a period of relief that day, but when Varley refused, he became desperate; the killing and subsequent cover up was all as Vestra had described.

As for myself, with the real killer caught and Professor Hanneman’s name cleared, my mind turned to the rather more urgent matter of my living situation. I could not imagine that Vestra would tolerate my presence much longer. Luckily, many of my belongings were still boxed up, and so packing, at least, was a simple prospect.

I was startled, then, when Vestra came upon me in a harried stated, and stopped to watch me for a moment with furrowed brows. I was irritably thinking that the man might as least offer his help if he was going to gawk, but after a moment, he asked, “What are you doing?”

I said, through gritted teeth, “You did not think I would wait to be thrown out into the street, did you?”

“Whyever would I do that?” Vestra replied, with such genuine bafflement that I stopped what I was doing at once.

“Well—” I said. “I offended you.”

“Oh, absolutely,” he said, “but no more than the usual pedestrian minds I must deal with – indeed, considerably less.”

By now, I was quite baffled myself. “But… I said those things to you. In the cab.” Surely he could not have forgotten?

“Ah. Yes.” Vestra cleared his throat. “I thought we had settled the matter. As I said then, you were quite correct.”

“You did not _act_ as though I were correct—”

“Because you still find me arrogant?” He raised his eyebrows as I fumed silently. “If you are to stay and assist me with my cases, I am afraid that is something you must grow used to. I have exercised considerable effort to acquire all the knowledge and philosophy to make my detective skills as excellent as they are. I do not hold with these pretences of false modesty – done only to make the simple-minded comfortable.”

I opened my mouth to protest, but Vestra was not yet finished.

He held up a hand to stall me. “I will admit, however, that even I am not immune to the danger which often besets all talented individuals – the complacency which follows from so often being right, which leads to the dreadful assumption of _always_ being right. For your many faults of character, I am content, at least, in supposing your judgement is scrupulously fair, and in that regard, I was not upset by your comments.” He paused, grimacing in a way which belied his words. “Actually, I should be grateful for them. How pathetic, indeed, for me to congratulate myself on solving a case which never ought to have been a case to begin with.”

Not grateful enough, I noticed, to say so without prompting, but my financial situation was really quite concerning, so I elected to take this comment in the spirit it was intended, and carefully inquired, “So, am I to understand that you are asking me to stay?”

“Well, I will not beg,” Vestra snapped, “but certainly you are better than many of the simpletons I have previously had to put up with, and so, yes, you may stay.”

I breathed a sigh of relief.

“I thought it would please one of your sensibilities, also,” Vestra continued loftily, “to know that Varley’s estate goes to his daughter, Bernadetta, who has expressed a desire to see his ill-gotten gains returned to his victims.”

“Oh, that is jolly good news!” I replied, brightening. “What a generous sort – how strange to think she could be the child of a man like Varley.”

“Stranger things have happened,” Vestra said. He was already walking away. “Do not be too disruptive with your unpacking. I am conducting an important experiment and wish not to be disturbed.”

“I shall take care to breathe only as much as required!” I called back.

Despite my sarcasm, I was overall quite pleased by how the conversation had turned out – even if getting Vestra to admit it had been like trying to squeeze water from a stone, he _had_ admitted that my pointed comments had been warranted, and—

My contentment was abruptly overtaken by dread as I recalled, with sudden clarity, another remark of his.

“Vestra!” I demanded. “What the devil did you mean by ‘if I were to stay and assist you on your cases’?!”

“I decided, in the end, that you were not really a detriment,” came the distant reply. “If you come along, you may eventually learn something.”

“You can go hang,” I muttered – under my breath, of course, as I was not keen on testing the man’s patience again so soon. Privately, however, I hoped that that would be the last of our investigations together.

It was ultimately for the better that it was quite impossible for me to avoid joining Hubert von Vestra on his next case, but that, dear readers, is a tale which I must be satisfied to tell another time.

Ferdinand put his pen down on the desk with a euphoric feeling of relief which left him both exhausted and energised at once.

When Hubert returned with the tea, he saw Ferdinand’s expression and graced him with one of his rare unreserved smiles. “It truly is finished, then?”

“Yes!” He could not help but beam back – in fact, it felt like all of him was beaming, except for his rather abused fingers. “I will want to make some edits and additions at a later time, of course, but yes – for the time being, it is done.”

“Congratulations,” Hubert replied. “Do you think you will make a series of it, then?”

“Oh, I certainly hope to, if you are still willing after you see how I have committed you to print,” Ferdinand said. “If I cannot parade you before society on my arm, then I would love, at least, to be able to show your achievements to the world.”

He blushed, but attempted to cover it with a scowl. “We are supposed to be celebrating _your_ achievement, you stupid man – do not turn around and make this about me,”

“But I cannot help it!” He grinned. “You are my muse, after all.”

“What an odd way of saying ‘subject’,” Hubert said dryly. “As strange as you are, I would trust no one else to be my biographer.”

“You are not afraid I will paint too rosy a picture of you?”

Hubert gave him a brief frown of disapproval whilst he peered into the teapot. “Ah! I was right; it has brewed just as you like it.”

He busied himself with serving the tea, waving Ferdinand back into his chair when he made a move to help. It was only when they were both settled, each with a cup of steaming tea, that Hubert returned to the question.

“You always have so little faith in yourself over the oddest matters – but no, I am not worried. Despite all my power of observation and deduction, you have always had a gift for seeing me just as I am, the good and the bad.” He took a sip of his tea. “It remains a mystery why you are so attached to me, my dearest fool, but I suppose no one is perfect.”

Ferdinand could not help but melt under such comments – so very Hubert in their disguised warmth. He extended his arm across the gap between their chairs, linking their hands together and stroking the pad of his thumb against the back of Hubert’s hand. “Maybe I am a fool about a great many things, but if you could see you as _I_ see you – well, perhaps it is for the best. Your arrogance would be totally incurable. But I assure you, I would be far more foolish if I watched your wonders _without_ falling in love with you.”

“Oh! You always get the last word in these discussions.” Hubert sighed, but there was a teasing smile playing about his lips. “If I turned it back on your and exclaimed _your_ wonders, we would be here for hours, going back and forth.”

“And why should we not?” he replied. “What could be better than to enjoy each other – to spend time in no company but our own?”

“World peace, perhaps?”

Ferdinand snorted and shook his head fondly. For all his talk, they lapsed into a companionable silence. Sunlight streamed through the windows, casting longer and longer shadows as the afternoon wore on, and still, there they stayed – just the two of them, in a story they had made their own.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I really appreciate hearing from my readers, so if you've made it this far I'd be overjoyed to hear from you whether you liked or disliked it!
> 
> I should also acknowledge that the inspiration for the murder mystery here was the first episode of Death in Paradise, although I have changed some details. If you love locked room mysteries, I can highly recommend the show!


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